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Food Nutrition and Health Related Claims – COAG Decision Regulation Impact Statement – Legislative and Governance Forum on Food Regulation

On 7 December 2012, the Australian and New Zealand ministers responsible for the regulation of food agreed to enact new laws in early 2013 that regulate the way food nutrition and health related claims can be made. The new laws set standards for the use of the nutritional content claims (e.g. ‘low fat’) and health claims (e.g. ‘contains calcium for healthy bones’). General level health claims (e.g. ‘calcium is good for strong bones’) can be supported by either pre-approved or industry self-substantiated food health relationships. High level health claims (e.g. ‘calcium reduces the risk of osteoporosis’) will require pre-approval by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ). The proposal is intended to boost confidence in consumers that nutritional and health related claims on food packaging is evidenced based, while imposing restrictions on the marketing of food and in some cases the content of food. FSANZ prepared a Regulation Impact Statement (RIS) in 2008, embodied in a final assessment report. This RIS recommended that FSANZ approve food nutrition and health related claims for food. At that time FSANZ only regulated certain food claims, while other claims were managed through an industry code of practice. FSANZ completed another RIS in 2012 examining the implementation on how it would approve food nutrition and health related claims. Both RIS were assessed as adequate by the OBPR.